Let It BeSteyn's Song of the Week #363

by Paul McCartneyApril 12, 2020

https://www.steynonline.com/10216/let-it-be

Paul McCartney and mother Mary

Just ahead of today's Song of the Week, a programming note: Next week I'll be attempting our first ever Mark Steyn Club request edition Song of the Week - in effect, your Songs of the Week rather than mine. In the comments section below, Steyn Club members should leave the particular song title, the artist's version thereof that you happen to like, and the reason you picked it. Try not to be too obvious: If it's all "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and "Blurred Lines", I reserve the right to cancel the show. But jump around the decades and the genres and introduce your fellow members to numbers they might not know, and by the end we'll all be doing the equivalent of those nightly Italian balcony window singalongs that seemed so charming for the first month or three of the house arrest. And with that on to this week's song:

On this strange Easter in a locked-down Christendom, we should note that "Mother Mary" is, according to the author, a reference not to Mary, mother of Jesus, but to Mary, mother of Paul. McCartney lost his mum to an embolism arising from her breast cancer treatment when he was fourteen: She was a midwife who bicycled off to her Merseyside patients in the hours before dawn, and the breadwinner in the family. The early death of his mother was one of Paul's most basic connections to John Lennon, whose mum died when he was seventeen.

Of course, even the bond of shared tragedy can fray. By 1968, the Beatles were starting to crack, and under the pressure, as happens fairly often, Paul began dreaming of less fraught times. And in one such reverie his mother (Mary) came to him speaking words of wisdom, and the visitation sparked a song. Nevertheless, McCartney was initially reluctant to put her in the lyric. On early rehearsals with John, George and Ringo around January 1969, he'd sing:

When I find myself in times of trouble
Brother Malcolm comes to me...

That would be "Brother Malcolm" as in Mal Evans, the doorman at the Cavern Club back in Liverpool who became the Beatles' roadie, bodyguard, personal assistant, general dogsbody and the man who, for example, went out and bought Ringo a pair of undies for his visit to the doctor.

That's all very well, but had Brother Malcolm stayed in the song I very much doubt its appeal would have been anywhere near as great. The healing balm of Brother Malcolm is all very well when you're a rocker needing a change of socks, but it doesn't speak to the non-rocker in quite the same way. Nor would Mother Vera or Mother Gladys. McCartney is too canny not to know what he was doing: What son, after all, refers to his mother by her Christian name? Paul is generally a little coy about what he intended by "Mother Mary", but undoubtedly it enlarged the lyric in a way that was in tune with the tenor of the times. There was, as the Sixties turned into the Seventies, a brief vogue for easy-listening "pseudo-religiosity" (as NME's Derek Johnson put it in his review), as exemplified by "Oh Happy Day" (one of many things loser cockwombles Cary Katz and Blaze TV sued me over) and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" among others. Paul McCartney certainly had a mother called Mary, but putting those two words in a pop song moved it beyond autobiography.

They were also the two words that ensured John Lennon's intense loathing of the song for the rest of his life. Per their longstanding and legally binding agreement, Paul's solo creation was credited to "Lennon & McCartney". We're inclined to honor those legalities in our sub-titular listings above, but in this particular case John disdained the song, and ever more so in the years that followed. Not long before his death, he told Playboy magazine, "That's Paul. What can you say? Nothing to do with the Beatles. It could've been Wings. I don't know what he's thinking when he writes 'Let It Be.'"

What John was thinking was: Oh, God, not another of Paul's "granny songs", as he called them. Conversely, Paul thought the psychedelic experimentation side of John was mostly a waste of time. I have been berated by many readers for almost a decade and a half for all but ignoring Lennon & McCartney, and by almost as many readers, on those rare occasions I have tiptoed around the edges of their catalogue, for preferring Paul to John. Well, I've had just one brief semi-substantive conversation with him in my life, and it struck me that his interest in "granny songs" is a big part of where he's at. Sammy Cahn, three decades older than McCartney, shared a birthday with him, and told me that, when they'd meet in the run-up to the big day, he'd greet Paul with, "I don't want to swap catalogues, just the year of birth." "I wouldn't mind swapping catalogues," said Paul.

McCartney is a very successful music publisher, who now owns Frank Loesser's oeuvre and publishes among others Charles Strouse. Charles told me years back about taking Paul to an early performance of Annie. McCartney hadn't seen many musicals in his Liverpool boyhood, and he was fascinated by the way the songs continued the narrative. "You wrote that?" he'd say to Charles after each number. "But it fits the story so well..." By contrast, or so I heard from Lionel (Oliver!) Bart, Lennon couldn't have been less interested: "I don't like musicals," he said. "All that 'Ding! Cue for a song...'"

Maybe the Beatles could have survived the other tensions if the core relationship - Lennon & McCartney as a pooled partnership of songs - hadn't decayed into mutual contempt. What with all the Sixties rock combos still staggering around on tour, it's kind of amazing that the Beatles phenomenon went soup to nuts - "Love Me Do" to "Let It Be" - in seven years, or a year less than Michael E Mann's vanity lawsuit against me has been chunkering round the choked toilet bowl of the District of Columbia courts. In September 1968 - less than six years after "Love Me Do" - the Beatles were in the studio recording the George Harrison song "Piggies", and in between takes Macca began noodling around on what would become "Let It Be":

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let It Be

And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let It Be

Let It Be, Let It Be
Let It Be, Let It Be
Whisper words of wisdom
Let It Be...

There's a touch of dear Doris Day about that: Que sera sera; whatever will be will be. It seems more apt for the fatalism of the Mohammedan than anything specifically Christian. Nevertheless, it was explicitly autobiographical: in his boyhood "hours of darkness", Paul's mother used to tell him, "It will be alright. Let it be."

The hope, presumably, was that in the Beatles' "hour of darkness" heeding his mum's advice would bring them through to the dawn and they would "wake up to the sound of music". Melodically and harmonically, the thing is almost wholly diatonic but decorated with a lot of appoggiaturas that give it that yearning and beseeching quality: O Lord, let it be... I don't think it's as strong melodically as, say, "My Love", but, just like "My Love", it seems pretty obviously a Paul McCartney solo that would be just as powerful with him accompanying himself on piano or guitar, and John, George and Ringo nipping off to the caff round the corner for a fag and a cuppa.

On January 31st 1969, at their new Apple Studios in London, the band recorded what would become the master take for all released audio versions (a second take was used in the film Let It Be). The studio chitchat captures the mood of the room:

John: Are we supposed to giggle in the solo?

Paul: Yeah.

John: Okay.

Paul: This is gonna knock you out, boy.

But it didn't.

For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see...

Fat chance of that. Three months later, George Harrison went into the studio to overdub a guitar solo onto the master track. And on January 4th 1970 - a year after the recording of that master track - McCartney and George Martin returned to the studio once more to turn the track into a finished record. John Lennon had quit the group by then, and everyone knew they were making, in effect, a post-Beatles single. George Martin added backing singers, including Linda McCartney (the only Beatles record she ever sang on), and George Harrison added another guitar solo intended to be overdubbed onto his previous overdubbed solo from April 1969.

Let It Be, Let It BeLet It Be, Let It BeWhisper words of wisdom
Let It Be...

So they let it be and didn't use Harrison's second solo. That's the single version you can hear at the top of the page. Instead George's January 1970 solo wound up on the album version, produced not by George Martin but by Phil (Wall of Sound) Spector, with an entirely different aesthetic - fewer backing vocals, more orchestration. The Beatles were now the sum of their parts, and some of their parts didn't even make the record, depending on who was running the control room:

As to what Phil Spector made of "Let It Be", I'd reckon he inclines more to Lennon's view of the song. The preceding track on the album is "Dig It", which at all of fifty-one seconds doesn't offer a lot to dig other than John Lennon's transatlantic namedropping:

Like a rolling stone
Like the FBI
And the CIA
And the BBC
BB King
And Doris Day
Matt Busby
Dig It!

For American readers, Sir Matt Busby is one of the all-time great footie managers (Man United): this is the first and last time he has ever been as close to Doris Day on record as Rock Hudson was in that bathtub.

And then Lennon goes into his Dame Gracie Fields impression and says: "That was 'Can You Dig It?' by Georgie Wood, and now we'd like to do 'Hark, the Angels Come'."

And McCartney's piano begins to play "Let It Be"...

Hmm.

Likewise for American readers, Wee Georgie Wood was the 4'9" English music-hall comedian, commemorated for the ages not only in a Beatles song but in the Wee Georgie Wood Railway that runs for a mile or so along Lake Rosebery in Tasmania. It is so-named because it is a two-foot narrow gauge railway, and thus the engine is rather small, just like Georgie.

Where was I? Oh, yeah:

And when the broken-hearted people
Living in the world agree
There will be an answer
Let It Be...

If John Lennon and Phil Spector can't resist using a fifty-one-second filler to insult the track that follows, well, as McCartney's mum used to say, let it be. Let the whole thing be - and move on.

As noted above, "Let It Be" was America's Number One exactly fifty years ago. Was it Number One in the lads' native land? Alas, no. It went straight into the UK hit parade at Number Two, but was blocked from the top spot by "(I was born under a) Wand'rin' Star", which is one of those wacky anomalies you never really get in the US charts. Unable to see off Lee Marvin, the Beatles had nowhere to go but down - from Number Two to Three to Four to Seven...

I wake up to the sound of music...

But it's Lee Marvin, and Simon & Garfunkel, and Andy Williams and Bob & Marcia, and all the other stuff that's kicking your butt...

That said, "Let It Be" did eventually get to Number One in Britain this very week in 1987 - and thus becomes the first Steyn's Song of the Week to hit Number One in two different versions in the same week a generation apart since "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes". The occasion was a terrible tragedy: On March 6th 1987 Townsend Thoresen's ferry The Herald of Free Enterprise left Zeebrugge in Belgium for Dover in England. The assistant boatswain had retired to his cabin for a nap and so neglected to close the bow doors before the ship sailed. The ferry promptly filled with water and fell to her side. Nearly two hundred passengers and crew died.

Many of those on board had purchased their tickets through a special offer in The Sun, Rupert Murdoch's big-selling tabloid. The paper's star columnist, Gary Bushell, decided to put together a big charity single to help the bereaved, and enlisted the help of Stock, Aitken & Waterman, the leading pop producers of the day. They in turn called on the various popsters in their rolodex. There was some resistance from certain of the leftier ones, who had no love for either Mr Murdoch or Gary Bushell, the latter best known for offering, as his proposed solution to the Aids pandemic, that homosexuals be tattooed at the base of their spines with the words "Abandon hope all ye who enter here".

However, there was no cancel culture back then, and so Paul McCartney himself came on board, followed by Boy George, Kate Bush, Mark Knopfler, my old chums from Bananarama ...although, as is the way with these things, so many accepted that it was hard to squeeze them all in: of the Bananarama gals, only Keren really had anything much to do - and most of the other participants, including Bonnie Tyler, the New Seekers, the Nolan Sisters, Radio One's Simon Bates, Radio Two's Gloria Hunniford, Linda Lusardi and various other of Mr Murdoch's Page Three Girls whom one is unaccustomed to seeing with their kit on, all these and more were relegated to the huge and protracted crowd scene that closed the record.

So how did Sir Paul sound returning to the recording studio for his first "Let It Be" in eighteen years? Er, well, as it happens he used that same old master vocal he'd laid down on January 31st 1969.

On the other hand, he was sporting enough to agree to mime along to his younger self for the video - while being sufficiently cautious to have the segment filmed at his pad so he didn't get captured on film bellowing along with Batesy, the Nolans, the Page Three totty and the other riff-raff:

A good cause and all that, but that truly hideous arrangement is a terrible way to bury a song. Paul McCartney knew that, I'm sure, but he also knew that a good song can survive even the most grotesque version.

One final thought - I can never hear this song without recalling McCartney's first go at working out the lyric:

When I find myself in times of trouble
Brother Malcolm comes to me...

Three years after the Beatles broke up, their old gofer Mal Evans moved to Los Angeles and wound up living with his girlfriend in a rental apartment at a motel on West 4th Street. On January 5th 1976, police were called and found a depressed Evans high on valium and waving a rifle. They failed to spot it was an air rifle, and shot him dead. Not long before he had been made an "Honorary Sheriff of Los Angeles County".

George Martin and Harry Nilsson attended the funeral, but no Beatle did. The ashes were mailed back to England, but misplaced by the Post Office. "They should have looked in the dead letter file," said John Lennon.

And when the night is cloudy
There is still a light that shines on me...

Not for Brother Malcolm, not when he needed it.

Shine on till tomorrow
Let It Be.

~If you're a Mark Steyn Club member, don't forget, per our top-of-the-page announcement, to send us any requests for next week's Song of the Week via our comments section below. (We won't publish them until the show airs next Sunday.)

If you enjoy our Sunday Song of the Week, we have a mini-audio companion, a bonus Song of the Week Extra, midweek on our Coronacopia edition of The Mark Steyn Show - and sometimes with special guests from Mark's archive, including Eurovision's Dana and Paul Simon.

Our Netflix-style tile-format archives forTales for Our Time and Steyn's Sunday Poems have proved so popular with listeners and viewers that we thought we'd do the same for our musical features just to provide some mellifluous diversions from the Coronapocalypse. Just clickhere, and you'll find easy-to-access live performances by everyone from Herman's Hermits to Liza Minnelli; Mark's interviews with Chuck Berry, Leonard Bernstein and the above-mentioned Bananarama (just to riffle through the Bs); and audio documentaries on P G Wodehouse's songs, John Barry's Bond themes, sunshine songs from the Sunshine State, and much more. We'll be adding to the archive in the months ahead, but, even as it is, we hope you'll find the new SteynOnline music home page a welcome respite from house arrest without end.

If you're aMark Steyn Club member and you disagree with any or all of the above, feel free to let it rip about "Let It Be" in our comments section. As we always say, membership in The Mark Steyn Club isn't for everybody, and it doesn't affect access to Song of the Week and our other regular content, but one thing it does give you is commenter's privileges. Please stay on topic and don't include URLs, as the longer ones can wreak havoc with the formatting of the page.

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37 Member Comments

Chris Lacy • Apr 14, 2020 at 21:26

Paul used to irritate me but as I learned more about Lennon and his ego he is worse. He was a conceited ass who couldn't find peace in his own relationships but knew?? the answer to world peace. Paul was always the brains and talent of the whole group.

Bob Belvedere • Apr 14, 2020 at 16:34

My favorite version of Let It Be has become the one from the album Let It Be...Naked, which is a stripped-down version of the record, managed by Paul.

To King K: Billy Preston's organ really shines on this version, even more so than on the single. This production really turns the song into a hymn.

Robert • Apr 14, 2020 at 12:34

What's happened to my comments?

I posted two, one of which was a song suggestion, and neither have appeared. I deliberately DIDN'T include a URL for the song suggestion.

Mark replies:

We're holding all the song requests until this weekend's request show, Robert. Yours was most intriguing.

Josh Passell • Apr 14, 2020 at 05:19

In recent years, Paul's come to look quite like his mum, don't you think?

Greg the Kiwi • Apr 14, 2020 at 02:10

Great commentary as always Mark ,marvellous always learn something u ole sockNever was a fan of the Beatles , an particularly McCartney, he's like soap -notwithstanding his talent , but just pop artists , Micheal Jackson et al , compare them to Andrea Bocelli singing Ave Maria in the duomo in Milan over Easter , where I sat 20 something years ago in awe of the cathedral- whilst getting eyed up by locals for a bag theft ! , but no comparison to such beauty
Thanks for keeping our spirits up

James Morphew • Apr 13, 2020 at 14:46

Oh, this one brings back the memories of some rather non-athletic kids in Detroit who would get a new Beatles or James Taylor record, and rush to their guitar or piano and see if they could play it themselves, imagining their own star-equivalence. Let It Be was quite easy on piano, and we noted the additional guitar solo on the album (some violation of authenticity). The Mother Mary reference was curious to us American Protestants, as we thought England was Protestant, but not objectionable is days of All Things to be Considered.

Some of the same uninformed musical wannabees were well aware of the forced partnership of Lennon & McCartney, but we felt the duo fully out-wrote either individual of later. We felt that McCartney kept Lennon out of those depressing, cranky themes of anti-everything, and Lennon added some spicy temper to Paul's Silly Love Songs. (Baby, You Can Drive My Car.) After Beatles, the musical gang seemed more partial to Paul & Wings rather than the Lennon & Workin' Class Hero or Imagine; Paul seemed more melodic. Oh, and he had more hits.

I didn't notice Mark avoiding the Fab Four, as much as I was aware that their fame has offered plenty of history, myth & folklore, and I thought Mark was reminding us of so many other great musical moments that rather got lost in their wake, which is much appreciated. The Beatles themselves stood upon the accomplishments and histories of so many greats, which they occasionally mentioned, but is obvious in their covers and a more even look at musical history. Many of us thank Mark for another wonderful listening tour.

Raymond Swenson • Apr 13, 2020 at 13:55

I had always thought that the meaning of "Let it be" was aspirational and hopeful, parallel to the phrase "There will be an answer." I had never considered the meaning as being "let it lay, leave it alone, don't worry about it, it will resolve itself." I think the hopeful version is the default American perception. We have been optimists from the very beginning, moving into a new land because we see the reward beyond the risk, and that has been true for every generation of immigrants. We have believed we are in a partnership with God to create a shining city on a hill, a new Jerusalem, a Zion. In every hour of darkness, of revolution, of slavery, of civil war, of world war, of pandemic, we believe that there will be music in the morning, an answer in the sunrise.

It strikes me that the great Democrat criticism of President Trump is that he is too optimistic about America defeating the pandemic and its economic wounds. They don't want people to have hope of an effective treatment in hydroxychloroquine. They don't want Americans to hope for a return to normal life and prosperity. They want perpetual angst and anger and guilt and victimhood to drive our public policy. What drives their global warming campaign is not scientific rationality but an idolatrous guilt over offending Mother Nature that must be expiated thtough dacrifice and suffering. The fact that there are simple and cheap ways to directly reduce global temperatures is anathema to them, because we would avoid the punishment for our hubris. Democrats hate the optimistic American spirit, and they hate optimistic Americans.

Raymond Swenson Raymond Swenson • Apr 13, 2020 at 14:25

As I reviewed my comment, it struck me that the best description for the Democratic Party is "the Guilty Party". They want all Americans to feel guilty for slavery, for denying votes to women, for past discrimination against gays, for opposition to communism, and for electing Donald Trump. If you don't feel as guilty as they are, you should feel guilty for not being "awoke" to your guilt.

Michael Riddle Raymond Swenson • Apr 14, 2020 at 11:56

Raymond, I enjoyed your comments and found them insightful. My own interpretation of "Let it be" was along the same lines as yours until I read Mark's essay. I always learn things from Mark, which I guess I why I'm such a fan.

I concur with your comments about the Democrats and Trump too. To perhaps amplify a little, the Dems seem to be neo-Puritans in their attitude, but with a pagan-istic type underlying religion in lieu of Christianity. For them, the new "Scarlet Letter" seems to be "R" for "racist" but they've got no shortage of other letters that they can pin on you: "D" for "Denier", "H" for "homophobe", etc.

I also see a troubling underlying problem. It seems that there are at least two "parallel psychological universes." That is, there is an objective reality, but we and Dems don't see it that way at all. For example, they only see Trump as Orange Man Bad. We see him "draining the swamp" and doing a lot of other things that benefit ordinary Americans of all colors and that they want. Naturally, I think our side is closer in viewing objective reality, but they would argue the opposite. Still, I think they're impervious to objective facts and evidence. But, the really troubling thing is that since there's no shared reality, there's no basis for "come, let us reason together." And, if we can't communicate and persuade, then the only options left to us are to submit to them or to fight them and defeat them. I don't see a basis for resolution or compromise.

David Kelley-Wood • Apr 13, 2020 at 01:47

Looks like I may have goofed. My interpretation of the Song of the Week nomination instructions "In the comments section below, Steyn Club members should leave the particular song title, the artist's version thereof that you happen to like, and the reason you picked it" was that it would be okay to include links to the preferred version(s). Am thinking now that I was mistaken.

Mark replies:

There's no need for links, David, because the idea is that, as in days of yore, I'll play the actual gramophone records.

Joseph W. David Kelley-Wood • Apr 13, 2020 at 08:58

I'm guessing that the nominations are being read but not displayed to give us more surprises when the big show comes.

peterl • Apr 13, 2020 at 00:04

Re: the 1987 "Herald of Free Enterprise" ferry disaster: many of the passengers had indeed booked tickets through The Sun tabloid. Its Â£1 Zeebrugge ticket offer became known as "Drowned for a Pound" in that newspaper's office.

John Shuba • Apr 12, 2020 at 23:55

Given a choice between "Let it Be" and "Imagine", I will plump.for "Let it Be" every time out. I was in my teens when the Beatles hit their "Sturm and Drang" period that included these two songs. By that time I could not have cared less.

However,full disclosure on one key aspect of the Beatles. In 2003 my girlfriend (at the time) and I went to NYC to do the tourist thing. It was a beautiful week in early autumn and we paid our respects at what was still the crater of the Twin Towers. My girlfriend (at the time) was a world-class, no-holds-bared, fanatically committed Beatles zealot. So we went to Central Psrk to the John Lennon memorial. Photographs taken aplenty. She then wanted photos of herself taken in front of the Dakota Apartments so we walked there. As I was snapping pictures a limo pulls up and out emerges....Yoko Ono with two security guys sporting shoulders wide enough to blot out the sun. My girlfriend (at the time) was pretty gutsy and approached Ms. Ono directly. (The security guys looked like they were about to wring the neck of yours truly like an old mop.) Yoko Ono could not have been nicer, more pleasant or more gracious. She posed for pictures, answered my companions many questions and was was touched by the fact that said companion had a tattoo of John Lennon on her shoulder. (Still does.) Yoko was the exemplar of class and patience. I'll never forget that.

Josh Passell John Shuba • Apr 13, 2020 at 05:59

Given a choice between "Let it Be" and "Imagine", I will plump.for "Let it Be" every time out.Amen, brother John. Lennon's tune is beguiling enough, but when I hear the preaching begin (on his first intake of breath), I feel like Huckleberry Finn wanting to "light out for the Territory". Who needs another Aunt Sally, trying to "sivilize" us? Like Huck, "I can't stand it. I been there before."

Michael Zerbee • Apr 12, 2020 at 23:45

I agree with you 100% when it comes to a preference for McCartney over Lennon. I will take "Let It Be" over "Imagine" all day, everyday.

EThompson Michael Zerbee • Apr 13, 2020 at 14:22

That's because "Imagine" was truly a Yoko song. (:

Matthew Wilson • Apr 12, 2020 at 22:42

I admit that I generally prefer John Lennon's songs to Paul McCartney's. I concur with his dismissal of McCartney's "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as "Paul's granny sh*t" - sh*t in terms of lyrics and subject matter, to me. Moreover, Lennon's own song about his mother, "Julia," is one of my favorite Beatles numbers. However, I've come to the conclusion that Lennon's feelings about his mother Julia Stanley are conflated with his feelings for Yoko Ono in that song, so I should really cease my appreciation for it. I attribute the comparative lightheartedness of McCartney's works to his better childhood and marriage relative to Lennon. Lennon had an underlying aggression and a chip on his shoulder, which I believe stems from his troubled formative years. Lennon had two sets of parents: the flighty, unreliable progenitors who were barely married to each other, and the sensible ordinary sort in the form of maternal aunt and husband. I fantasize about writing a story about John Lennon; giving him a new life, as a Liverpudlian insurance salesman or some such. Then I would allow alternate John Lennon a vision of his real life, as a Beatle, to see if he would choose the original path all over again. I'd like to think that 20th Century Jesus (as our diminished society has essentially apotheosized him) would prefer to be Mr. Lennon if he could choose.

EThompson Matthew Wilson • Apr 13, 2020 at 14:33

I speak with some authority as a former grade school president of the Motor City Beatles fan club. :)

There is no such thing as a Lennon or a McCartney song; those two were the most gifted collaborators in rock 'n roll history.

Robert Bresca • Apr 12, 2020 at 22:34

I used to work at the Rosebery mine, down the road from Tullah where the Wee Georgie Wood railway is but I never got to have a go on it. The west coast of Tasmania is a beautiful part of the world and worth visiting. Did you end up having a ride on the train Mark?

Perry Pattetic • Apr 12, 2020 at 22:30

I never was a Beatles fan. Preferred The Monkees.

Walt Trimmer Perry Pattetic • Apr 13, 2020 at 12:43

Is that why you had to flee England?

King K Perry Pattetic • Apr 13, 2020 at 13:17

OMG It's all I can think of to say.

EThompson Perry Pattetic • Apr 13, 2020 at 14:19

You're a brave soul for admitting this but I luvved the Beatles and liked the Monkees. Davy, Mike, Mickey and Peter may not have written or even sung their own music but whoever did was pretty talented.

Perry Pattetic Walt Trimmer • Apr 14, 2020 at 08:16

Ha! I lived abroad for the last third of the 60s, and we had no telly, I don't even recall radio although I must have listened to an English-language station. No UK papers, and I didn't read the local press much except to see how my team did. My Mum like Cliff, my sister liked The Monkees.

And I was too young to care much about music. So I missed that whole shift from mop-tops to dope-head hippies and emerged in the flared 70s when they were pretty much done. I found Yellow Submarine bewildering and still do.

My youth was a choice between skinheads/suedeheads, soul and Lambrettas on one side and ELP, Genesis, Lou Reed and Deep Purple with long hair and A Line flares. I went long hair.No-one ever talked about the Beatles. Only Americans loved the Beatles, in my youth.

Phil Hopman • Apr 12, 2020 at 22:15

Mark, as far as "being berated by readers" for your song selections, I have always respected you for following your own musical instincts. Your work has enriched my musical world greatly, mostly with songs I had never heard of. Thank you.

Michael Riddle Phil Hopman • Apr 14, 2020 at 12:38

I agree!!

Marc Swerdloff • Apr 12, 2020 at 21:15

Let it be that we may gather and sing in a crowded room without face masks and social distancing. Let it be, Lord! Let it be.

Larry Davis • Apr 12, 2020 at 21:04

A while ago you told the story of Sam Phillips and his raw young singer Elvis Presley . As a Memphian and a teenager at that time I loved Sun Records .Phillips used Elvis to invent the rock and roll style .The first authentic example was Mystery Train by the young phenom . So clear , so pure ,so fine .Could you feature that song and the interaction between the two .

Matthew McWilliams • Apr 12, 2020 at 20:58

Since you let Kathy write about The Who, what about "Eyesight to the Blind" which appears on the Tommy album. In the between song commentary on Live at Leeds Pete Townsend credits it to Mose Allison, but apparently he just recorded it. It was written by Sonny Boy Williamson and has received quite a bit of coverage; B.B. King, Eric Clapton and Buddy Rich.

Peter B • Apr 12, 2020 at 20:53

What - no review of cover versions? (Not really counting the charity remake..)

This McCartney classic did not lend itself to a record-breaking number of covers as did 'Yesterday', but Tennessee Ernie Ford of all people lent his stentorian pipes to the song. I personally like it, as it fits the gospel overtones, though it inevitably got lumped in with the wacky Mae West and William Shatner Beatles covers.No breaking of hyperlink rules, but this version is out there on the evil YT...

Laura Rosen Cohen • Apr 12, 2020 at 20:42

How about something from Joni Mitchell? Court and Spark is one of my favourite albums.

Patty Burke • Apr 12, 2020 at 20:35

This is an unabashed plea on behalf of my dog Zippy to feature Zip-a-dee-doo-dah as your Song of the Week. She learned her name 10 years ago by listening (on autoplay) to a CD I burned from itunes containing versions from B (Bing Crosby) to X (Xavier Cougat) and 16 artists between (Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans, the Boston Pops, Crimson Ensemble, Don Carlos, Eric Tingstad/Nancy Rumbel, Geraldo, Irv Orton's Orchestra, Johnny Mercer & the Pied Pipers, Knightsbridge, Louis Armstrong, Mickey & Pals, Mike Curb Congregation, Mike Toppins/Glen Duncan/Billy Troy/Jim Brown/James Freeze/David Chase, Miley Cyrus, Steve Miller & Sun Ra).Zippy and I agree that our favorite version is Der Bingle's, with its prelude set as a morning alarm most days. It sets a Zip-a-dee-doo-dah mood in motion from beginning to end. Don Carlos's reggae and Satchmo's jazz versions are close favorites.

Mortified. Perhaps the thought of Zippy entering her 2nd decade was too sobering for me to remain sober and I was still nursing a hangover 3 days after her birthday. There is no other plausible explanation for missing your November 25, 2018 column! I'm so glad you finished the column that Katz's frivolous suit interrupted. The depth of the back story to Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah is exactly what I'd hoped for and love about Song of the Week. But I also appreciate the depth of feeling for the loss of your beloved TJ and how that sentiment colored your acknowledgement of Zippy's milestone birthday. I was very touched that you ended the column "So, alphabetically speaking, 'Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah' is where the Great American Songbook ends, and, if it has to end anywhere, it's hard to improve on:

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah, zip-a-dee-ayWonderful feeling, wonderful day!

Indeed. Happy birthday, Zippy!"

Late that I am to the Song-of-the-Week #339 party, you made my Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah-Day! It's frame-worthy. Thank you, Mark.

Nicholas Strathy • Apr 12, 2020 at 20:31

Paul doesn't shy away from putting out simple sincere messages from the heart which makes songs like And I Love Her, Yesterday, and Let it Be, work. Lennon was too worldly wise, and transgressive for such naivete. His contribution to the genre was Imagine - all progressive head and no heart. Not to mention of course that Paul is just a natural born song writer.

King K • Apr 12, 2020 at 20:23

Mark - It's the great Billy Preston (the Fifth Beatle) on organ in the US single version, which makes the record for me. It's a wholly different song with that replaced by the second Harrison overdub, much less moving. And one other thing: "appoggiatura." Far out!

Gareth Roberts • Apr 12, 2020 at 18:10

I'm not sure why, but this is the only Beatles song I really like.

Kitty Bits Gareth Roberts • Apr 13, 2020 at 03:26

That makes sense to me. Actually, I liked most of their songs as I was raised listening to them. They were like the sesame street music of my youngest brother's generation, tame when compared to a lot of other stuff out there.